When a winning smile is not enough

Beauty contests are now big business, but have lost their appeal for Lauri Kubuitsile.

When I first moved to Mahalapye in
1989, most Saturday nights, especially
at the end of the month when everyone
got paid, you would find a beauty
contest at our community hall. It
might be Miss Mahalapye or Miss
Madiba (our local secondary school)
or even something commemorating an
event: Miss Independence Day or Miss
Mahalapye Agriculture Show. It didn’t
matter. These contests consisted of local
young women putting on
their best dresses, getting
their hair done, and then
parading around on stage to
music at eardrum-splitting
levels. The height and weight
of the contestants were not
important. The clincher was
always the smile. If you had a
good smile, you had a good
chance. Judges were picked
from local VIPs: people like
ward chiefs, a councillor’s
wife, or teachers. The winner
won a blanket or an iron.
After the formalities of the
beauty contest were over,
the night turned into what
everyone had pitched up for
– a disco.

But all of this changed in 1999.
For the first time in history, Botswana
sent a young woman, 20-year-old
Mpule Kwelegobe, to the international
Miss Universe contest. She got to the
finalist stage and then was asked the
question that sealed the deal – ‘Should
Miss Universe step down if she should
become pregnant during her reign?’

Illustration: Sarah John

This was just about the best
question to ask a young Motswana
woman from a country that views all
births, no matter inside or outside
of marriage, as a blessing, and where
it is estimated more than half of
households are headed by women.

Her answer? ‘I think it should
not in any way interrupt her duties;
she should celebrate her femininity. Having children is a celebration of
womanhood for all females, including
beauty queens.’

And with that Botswana erupted
into cheers of joy as Mpule was
crowned Miss Universe 1999, and
beauty contests in Botswana were
given an adrenaline kick they haven’t
yet recovered from.

Where they used to be casual affairs
organized the afternoon before the event, they now became serious, with
marketing budgets and big prizes.
Miss Botswana winners nowadays
win a car and a flat in Gaborone. The
standards of beauty have changed too.
Tall and thin is in and, though a smile
is important, sadly, it isn’t going to win
you a Mercedes Benz unless you have
the other requirements.

In 2006, I was asked to be a
beauty contest judge. We were living
in the tiny village of Lecheng, where
my husband was the head of the
secondary school, and as his wife I
was a prime candidate for the position
of beauty-contest judge. I accepted
reluctantly. It was for Miss Lecheng
40th Anniversary of Independence. It
was a post-Mpule beauty contest so I
expected the regular kind of thing, but as soon as the contestants walked on
the stage, I knew something else was
going on – at least, I hoped so.

The age range of the women was
about 18 to 60. The weight and height
range was just as varied. I realized
then that these were the women from
Ditshephe, a local traditional dance
troupe. I’d seen them dance many
times before and I had my favourite in
the group, Thatayaone. She was about
30, with large breasts and
an equally large bum, who,
when not dancing, you
might not even notice in her
doek and letaise (headscarf
and traditional dress with
printed pattern). But once
she began, you saw noone
else. Her feet stamped
across the dusty ground
as if possessed; the entire
time she smiled and she was transformed.

I hadn’t noticed her
at first, not in the fancy
dresses, mostly satin, in
colours not seen outside of
weddings. It was only when
she put on her traditional
dance uniform and she came stamping
across the floor, her magical smile in
place, that I knew my judging was
done. She would be my winner, and
across the form I gave her 10, 10, 10.
We were back to those early days when
the smile was everything. I was sure
of it.

Sadly, in the end, my co-judges
clung to the more Western standards
of beauty, à la Mpule, and Thatayaone
came third despite my best effort.
Things had changed irrevocably and
they weren’t going back.

Lauri Kubuitsile is the author of numerous
books, primarily for children and teens. Her
most recent is a collection of stories set in
Botswana, In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata and
Other Stories (HopeRoad, 2011).

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